Hank Youngerman wrote:
> I'm curious as to what people would suggest as the tournament format
> that would best ensure that the final results were reflective of
> skill. The format should assume a tournament that might take two days
> or more of play to complete.
>
> Two things are obvious:
>
> 1. Any format should be seeded, to ensure that the better players are
> not concentrated in any one competitive group.
>
> 2. The more backgammon that is played, the better.
>
> [snip]
For 64 players, I would suggest a 6 to 8 round Swiss tournament with 7
point matches at each round. This guarantees that everybody plays 6 or
8 matches regardless of performance, and in the last several rounds,
they play against players who are at a similar perfomance level with
each other.
In case you are not familiar with the Swiss system:
1. Sort all 64 players according to their rating (this is why you need
an accurate rating system).
2. Divide the group into two halves from the center and pair up the
first round in such a way that player ranked 1 plays against the one
ranked 33, 2 against 34, 3 against 35, etc.
3. Once the first round matches are finished, line up the winners (again
rating order), divide the group into two; pair them up like you did in
the first round... similarly , pair up the losers. There are rules to
deal with the odd playes, etc. that I will not get into details at
this point, but let me know if you need these details. Note that two
players cannot play against ech other more than once.
4. At the end of the second round, pair up all the players who won two
matches; then pair up those who won only one; then pair up those who
lost both matches.
5. Proceed in a similar fashion with pairings until all te rounds are
done.
This system was created to identify a clear winner from a large group of
participants in a few rounds. It has been tremendously successfull in
chess tournaments and has took over the traditional round-robin system
for most open tournaments.
Hope this will add to your library of tournament format ideas.
Cheers..Osman
--
Osman F. Guner
osman@prodigy.net
http://pages.prodigy.net/osman